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L'heure bleue: a new French layout


Barry Ten
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I'm always undecided about whether or not to fix buildings down permanently; if they're loose then they can be worked on away from the layout, as well as being easily recycled for use on other projects. On the other hand, if (as I've done) you forget that they're loose, and tip the layout on its side, all sorts of calamities can ensue! In this case I decided that I'd go with fixing the buildings down fairly solidly, partly so there's less to transport and damage, but also because of the number of wiring connections that are needed for the illumination.

 

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These are now fixed in place, so any additional detailing will need to be done in-situ, but on the plus side I've been able to verify that the lights all still work. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice holes in the pavement which are there to allow for the addition of street lamps, which will also be illuminated.

 

I decided that I liked this view (below) but it was a bit cramped as it originally stood, so I opted to move all the buildings off to the right a bit to provide a nicer sightline over the girder bridge. You can see where I've had to splice in a new bit of road, in an area which was originally under the corner cafe.

 

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There's tons more to be done in this area, but I'm already getting a bit of a buzz from parking a loco on the bridge; I can imagine it sitting there hissing away between duties, while the happy customers in La Passerelle enjoy a well-earned glass of Stella Artois, suitably oblivious to the railway action. The girders are Central Valley products I think, finally finding a home after being salvaged from Wyvant, after it was dismantled in 2007. Never throw anything away...

 

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At the moment the layout has two lighting systems; a white LED strip to provide the main illumination, and a variable-colour strip to augment the white and provide some mood lighting when desired. The colours can be switched using a keypad, enabling the ambience to be varied from wintery early evening to the frankly psychedelic! Ideally, it'll be possible to tune the atmospherics to suit the available lighting, although in a brightly lit room, there won't be much scope for going into the more twilight moods.

 

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Cheers!

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Some more detailing and additions to the river end of the layout. The big bridge and the smaller girder bridge have been painted in uniform colour and weathered, hopefully making them look of a piece; I added one of my usual pipelines which I always find difficult to resist with bridges, in this case with the intention of tieing the two together and giving the Faller bridge a bit more detail.

 

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A bit blurry this one, sorry - must have forgotten to lock the tripod properly. I've toying with adding a small property in the angle between La Passarelle and the girder bridge; luckily one of the Faller kits I have contains a lot of useful spare parts, so something can be bodged together quite easily, I hope. I did have the intention of adding another Regions et Compagnies building here, a small estate agents, but it didn't look quite right in situ so will find a use elsewhere.

 

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Onto more night scenes. I've underlit the girder bridge using two white-light "nano" LEDS, as well as adding some illumination to the low-relief building fixed to the backdrop. This area is already screaming out for more detailing in the way of pavements and general street clutter. One area where I'm drawing a blank is in the sourcing of suitable French posters and street signage; there must be someone who does them, but I've not had any luck scouring the more familiar detail suppliers.

 

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A better view of the proposed shop tucked between La Passerelle and the bridge, with a Faller shopfront propped in place. I don't want too tall a building here as it backs right onto the headshunt, and I think views of wagons or a Moyse tractor lurking at the end of the siding might be quite interesting.

 

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And more of the same; in this picture I think the bridges are crying out for some illumination of their own but I need to guard against too much wiring and complexity!

 

Cheers all.

 

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Some more detailing and additions to the river end of the layout. The big bridge and the smaller girder bridge have been painted in uniform colour and weathered, hopefully making them look of a piece; I added one of my usual pipelines which I always find difficult to resist with bridges, in this case with the intention of tieing the two together and giving the Faller bridge a bit more detail.

 

Lovely work, really atmospheric!

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"...a better view of the proposed shop tucked between La Passerelle and the bridge, with a Faller shopfront propped in place. I don't want too tall a building here as it backs right onto the headshunt, and I think views of wagons or a Moyse tractor lurking at the end of the siding might be quite interesting..."

 

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I like the shop; it fills a gap that probably would have been filled by a commercial property at some point. I also had to make myself look for the building in question in order to find it. This indicates to me that it is prototypically unobtrusive (or that I am just irredeemably unobservant – either is possible). Additionally, by being only single story it allows good views of whatever is on the tracks behind.

 

This looks like it will be a more than worthy successor to Cogirep (which was a very nice layout).

Edited by Sarcodelic
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.... One area where I'm drawing a blank is in the sourcing of suitable French posters and street signage; there must be someone who does them, but I've not had any luck scouring the more familiar detail suppliers. ...

 

If you're happy to resize and print your own then this link should hopefully take you to a selection of photos of the real items from the Paris En Images web site.

Edited by Neil
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Looking splendid Al.

 

 

Already very atmospheric and exuding caractère de la France.

 

 

Rob

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Cheers, Rob. 

 

i was in France last week (Dax and Paris) and obviously found myself paying a lot more attention to architecture than I'd normally do, and convinced myself that, within limits, you can get away with quite a bit. I was worried that those Artitec facades were a bit fancy, for instance, and perhaps they are, but I saw lots of buildings with ornamental features which were not a million miles from them.

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Aritec do some lovely bits and bobs.

 

Should I get around to my Czech layout then I shall be looking very closely at their range.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Here are a couple of shots showing progress on the right side of the layout.

 

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Track's ballasted, rails painted; sleepers still need treating and there's a lot of general tidying-up to be done, as well

as reducing the impact of Peco point mechanisms. I've begun to add some walls, using plaster castings based on

a rubber mould I picked up at one of the Dutch exhibitions, and which provided all the walls for Cogirep as well. I

wish I could remember the supplier of the mould as they made some nice scenic items including some excellent

cobbled roads and junctions.I think I might have got it from the Anita Decor stand but I'm not sure they made the

mould itself as I don't see anything like it on their website. The walls look very red at the moment but they'll tone

down once I add a mortar wash to bring out the brickwork. The rails, similarly, will be toned down with various

treatments.

 

I think there's the hint of a good viewing point here; at the moment I'm undecided about adding a second building

to the right of the truck, where there's currently a block of blue foam. It could act as a nice visual frame, especially

from this angle, but on the other hand it would also hide more of the goods yard from other angles. Might be a case

of suck it and see, I think.

 

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Still lots more to do, but at least there's no great rush so decisions can be taken carefully.

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Morning Al.

 

 

If a building were to be added then height will play its part. For what it's worth I would suggest a lower building so as to glimpse the goods shed/yard over the top. Perhaps a ramshackle garage type of thing...

 

Image from Emmanuel Nouallier

 

 

Rob.

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Morning Al.

 

 

If a building were to be added then height will play its part. For what it's worth I would suggest a lower building so as to glimpse the goods shed/yard over the top. Perhaps a ramshackle garage type of thing...

 

Image from Emmanuel Nouallier

 

 

Rob.

Just missing the 'Defendu uriner', the lower half partially washed away.

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Looks a really nice layout, I always liked Cogirep which I thought got the balance spot on between enough detail for the space wothout being over crowded.

 

 

I think what helped Cogirep was the accident of its baseboard being an odd shape, due to it being recycled from an old layout, and this helped

it end up looking longer than it really was. For instance, each half of this new layout is the same length as Cogirep, but it doesn't look as if

Cogirep's track plan would fit in either half.

 

In the long run, I'm hoping to find a way to link both layouts (either directly or via an intermediate module) but the sticking point at the moment

is that Cogirep is quite shallow, so there's about 6 inches or more of separation between the track levels. If I deepen Cogirep, though, it won't

fit in the car - maybe not a big problem though as it's not been exhibited all that in the last few years.

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Al - I don't know if it will work, but if you want to put something in the area to the right of the truck, would a small, building reclamation yard fit in the corner? Corrugated, rusty-sheet, fencing with some barbed wire along the top, and some rude graffiti and distressed painting, and a very rundown, Steptoe-like (if such a thing can be can be thought of as French) atmosphere, and possibly an old caravan as an office. The fence height could be adjusted to allow viewing of the railway without blocking the view - just chucking ideas into the pot!

Edited by shortliner
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